D.A.R.E.-----Drug Awareness
Resistance Education

This is your brain:


brain

This is your brain on drugs:


brain on drugs



Part of the reason D.A.R.E. (Drugs Abuse Resistance Education) works so well is because it is a collaborative effort between your police department, your school, parents, and community leaders. D.A.R.E. works because it surrounds children with support and encouragement from all sides.

D.A.R.E. teaches kids how to recognize and resist the direct and subtle pressures that influence them to experiment with alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, and other drugs. And since, between 70% and 90% of all crime is drug related, it is absolutely vital that we reach the children of America before it is too late.

The D.A.R.E. program is usually introduced to children in the 5th or 6th grade. A specially trained officer comes into your school one day a week for seventeen weeks and teaches the children. And, to make it easy on you, we've designed the D.A.R.E. curriculum to integrate easily into your other lessons. Student participation in the D.A.R.E. program may be incorporated as an integral part of the school's curriculum in health, science, social studies, language arts, or other subjects. It is important that you, as the classroom teacher, maintain a supportive role in classroom management while the officer is teaching. And, finally, you should incorporate D.A.R.E. program participation by students as an fundamental part of your students' final evaluation.

D.A.R.E. teaches kids how to be assertive and to deal with peer pressure by saying no effectively. Students learn about the dangers of drugs and gain self-confidence by acting out problem situations. They are taught to keep their bodies healthy, control their feelings when angry or under stress and decide whether to take a risk. Your students are also taught how to respond when a friend pressures them to use alcohol or drugs and to recognize forms of influence from peers, parents, and the media. They even get suggestions for alternative activities to "hanging out" on the streets.

D.A.R.E. teaches kids how to recognize and resist the direct and subtle pressures that influence them to experiment with alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, and other drugs. And since, between 70% and 90% of all crime is drug related, it is absolutely vital that we reach the children of America before it is too late.

Today, D.A.R.E. reaches approximately 25 million American students per year in kindergarten through the 12th grade in over 250,000 classrooms. It also teaches them how to resist unwanted peer pressure and to build and maintain self-confidence. With D.A.R.E. officers salaries paid by local law enforcement agencies, the total cost of D.A.R.E. for one child, from kindergarten through 12th grade, is just over $12. This compares to $40,000 per year for incarceration. We then spend $800 a day and up on treatment programs, increasing costs exponentially. And in a society where over 23 million Americans use illegal drugs, prevention far outweighs the costly alternative.

D.A.R.E.'s impact on reducing substance abuse among young people is well-documented both in terms of quantitative studies verifying D.A.R.E.'s successes and in terms of real-life experiences of D.A.R.E. students. More than 20 studies from around the country cite D.A.R.E. as an excellent substance abuse prevention program. Many of these studies clearly demonstrate D.A.R.E.'s effectiveness in preventing drug, alcohol, and tobacco use.

The highly acclaimed program gives children the skills they need to avoid involvement in drugs, gangs, or violence. D.A.R.E. was founded in 1983 in Los Angeles and has proven so successful that it is now being implemented in nearly 75 percent of our nation's school districts and in 44 countries around the world.

D.A.R.E. is a police officer-led series of classroom lessons that teach children from kindergarten through 12th grade how to resist peer pressure and live productive drug and violence- free lives. The program, developed jointly by the Los Angeles Police Department and the Los Angeles Unified School District, initially focused on elementary school children. It has now been expanded to include middle school and high school students.

| DARE | Alcohol |
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| PCP | Marijuana |
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